A Puzzle about Weak Belief

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Abstract

I present an intractable puzzle for the currently popular view that belief is weak—the view that expressions like ‘S believes p’ ascribe to S a doxastic attitude towards p that is rationally compatible with low credence that p. The puzzle concerns issues that arise on considering beliefs in conditionals. I show that proponents of weak belief either cannot consistently apply their preferred methodology when accommodating beliefs in conditionals, or they must deny that beliefs in conditionals can be used in reasoning.

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Joshua Edward Pearson
Australian National University

Citations of this work

Guessing and its Limits.Helena Fang - 2026 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 112 (3):563-577.
A semantics for weak, question-sensitive belief.Andrej Jovićević - 2024 - Proceedings of the Amsterdam Colloquium 24:188-196.

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References found in this work

A Theory of Conditionals.Robert Stalnaker - 1968 - In Nicholas Rescher, Studies in Logical Theory. Oxford,: Blackwell. pp. 98-112.
Perspectivism.Jeremy Goodman & Harvey Lederman - 2021 - Noûs 55 (3):623-648.
Thinking, Guessing, and Believing.Ben Holguin - 2022 - Philosophers' Imprint 22 (1):1-34.
On conditionals.Dorothy Edgington - 1995 - Mind 104 (414):235-329.

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